Sharing is Caring
by Amatara
Summary: Denny wants a threesome for his birthday. Alan isn't thrilled. Shirley is caught in the middle.


"You're joking." Alan rocked on his heels, mouth turned up in his most charitable smile. He followed it up with a chuckle, just in case. Not that he worried. Surely, _surely_ Denny was pulling his leg: an activity which Denny, notwithstanding frequent claims of Mad Cow and various other ailments, had only grown more proficient at with the passage of time.

Denny's eyebrows climbed halfway towards his hairline. "No, I'm not!"

_Ah._ Well, there was a train of thought derailed with ruthless efficiency. "You're not?" Alan echoed.

"Alan, I'm hurt!" Denny said. He spread his arms across the tabletop. "What makes you think I'd be joking about–"

"Denny." Alan reined in his smile. He took a step back from the door and towards Denny's oversized desk – oversized, he'd always conjunctured, so as to better serve in the plethora of carnal activities that had to be Denny's main trade in the office these days. But this wasn't the time to explore that particular avenue. In fact he now felt faintly debauched for even entertaining the thought. Because if Denny _wasn't_ joking–

He pursed his lips at Denny. Denny glared back.

Alan spread his hands. "Denny, let's recapitulate. I asked if there was something in particular you'd like for your birthday. Far be it for me to begrudge you a good time, so I was prepared for you to answer any or all of the following: office party, sleepover, hookers, dude ranch… Even going to Nimmo Bay with you and staying there until you'd actually caught a _fish_, for God's sake!" He cracked a grin to show he was teasing, hoping Denny would take the bait. Nothing happened. Alan sighed and tugged at his collar. "Honestly, Denny–"

"You asked a question, I gave you a straight answer," Denny cut him off. "What more do you want?"

Was he dreaming, or was that actually an indignant tone creeping into Denny's voice? Oh, dear. If it was, there'd be no skirting the issue.

"Denny," he tried again, in his most reasonable tone. He took another few steps inside, stranding about two feet from the infamous desk, and took a steadying breath. "Of all the things you could ask as a birthday present, you're not seriously saying the thing you want most, is–"

"I am!" Denny said indignantly. "Why wouldn't I be? I value our friendship, Alan! I wouldn't _think_ of asking for a present unless you'd also get some fun out of it. Not just that, but we're _flamingos_! Flamingos _share_, don't they?" Denny's eyes were wide with expectation.

"I've always heard it said that flamingos are monogamous," Alan retorted, a bit too feebly to make for a witty comeback. He felt caught like a deer in headlights. As a rule he rather enjoyed that sensation, especially if the headlights were the property of a sharp-tongued, well-endowed, preferably nimble-fingered member of the fairer sex, but that was for entirely different reasons. With Denny, if he had to be the center of attention, Alan preferred it to be on his own terms. "I'm sorry, Denny, but if your idea of 'fun' is–"

"– having a threesome together? Are you kidding?" Denny's voice went up by half an octave. For a moment, Alan had to fight the impulse to stick his fingers into his ears and hum at the top of his lungs. Half the building must have heard Denny cry out the magic word. But Denny went on unperturbed: "Alan, what more fun can there be? Besides, we've had all kinds of bonding experiences, haven't we? Word salad, Mad Cow, shared jail cells, sleepovers, the Supreme Court, dude ranches, uh, whatsitcalled, uh… _priapism_–"

_"Denny!"_

"– so why not this? It's not even like this is new! Remember back in Season four, when we did the episode with Andrea? 4.13? We were gonna swing, but it turned out there was only one woman, instead of two? Ring a bell?" Denny's chest puffed out like a peacock's. "I may have forgotten what I had for breakfast this morning, but I'll be damned if I forget a script that had the word 'three-way' in it! I bet viewers have been dying for us to put our money where our mouth is ever since, wouldn't you say? Ratings would go through the roof, Alan! Think about it!"

Alan fidgeted, eyeing the liquor cabinet longingly. This was quickly evolving from slapstick to one of those infamous Deep Conversations – which Alan was fine with, provided said conversations didn't stray into mental territory too sticky to discuss with a therapist, let alone his best friend. Let's face it, his sex life was already a ruin. Not the sex part in itself, but the part that involved actually liking the person one was having sex with. The logistics were never the issue, but enjoying sex, and the whole ritual surrounding it… that seemed to be beyond him these days. Whereas, if he and Denny ever had a – God help him – a threesome, he knew beyond a doubt Denny would want him to enjoy it. Would be _desperate_ for him to enjoy it. Denny's physical prowess might no longer be what it once was, but his enthusiasm was boundless as ever, and Alan would be hopelessly outclassed on the one count that would really matter to Denny: having a good time. Frankly, Alan couldn't think of anything more likely to ruin their friendship. And his self-image to boot.

"Denny…" he started, trailing off to gaze through the window. Why was it he had to start every single sentence with 'Denny' these days? The easy answer would be that Denny responded to his own name like a dog to the scent of a bone; the more you dangled it in front of him, the more likely you'd have him on your side. The other, far stickier answer was that the name had become an anchor for Alan as much as it had for Denny. Somehow he harbored the illusion that as long as he kept using the name, the man _wearing_ the name would be still be there, unscathed.

Alan winced. Oh, great. Now he was depressed as well as mortified.

Through some miracle, Denny must have picked up on his sudden spate of lethargy. The creak of a chronically overextended office chair signaled movement behind the desk; Alan turned and found himself face-to-face with his friend.

"You're upset with me," Denny said, in a voice that was suddenly painfully reasonable. "Why?"

Alan shrugged helplessly. "I'm not upset with you, Denny. I'm upset because, well, what you're asking is… kind of a big deal." He cast another longing glance towards Denny's liquor supply, hoping beyond hope Denny would take a hint when it stared him right in the face. "You do see that, don't you?"

"I – I don't know." Denny's frown was one of genuine puzzlement. "A big deal, how? You _like_ to experiment, don't you? And you always run around claiming you're the essence of lewdness, and how no amount of perversity can shock you, so I thought…"

Oh, god. So he'd brought this on himself, hadn't he? Of all the tragically inappropriate moments for poetic justice to manifest itself, it had to be this one. Alan chewed his lip. "Ah… yes. I might not-too-inadvertently have given that impression, but Denny, you and I, a threesome… Lack of lewdness is hardly the issue here, I'll admit, but this might be biting off a bit more than I could chew in terms of… well…" He swallowed. "Intimacy."

"_Intimacy?"_

Alan cringed; from Denny's mouth, the word sounded even more ludicrous than from his own. He did need that drink, and he needed it now. His nerves were beyond jangled. It wouldn't do to flee the room screaming if Denny said another word, which he was no longer certain was an inconceivable scenario.

"I – I don't understand," Denny said, as Alan went for the liquor cabinet and tore it open like a starving man might a Happy Meal. "What the two of us have shared… the things we've discussed out on that balcony… I mean, how much more intimate can two people _get_?"

Alan turned around to look at Denny. Uh-oh. Denny's cheeks had sagged, and his eyes had acquired that moist quality Alan knew all too well. The one which meant he had to tread lightly or risk sending Denny off into a fit of rage, or worse, abject misery.

"Look, Denny." Alan exhaled sharply through his mouth. "Far be it for me to devalue our shared experiences on the balcony, but this… isn't… well, you have to admit it's not the same." He cracked open a bottle and poured himself one finger of Scotch, reconsidered and made it two. For a second he was tempted to throw in a dramatic gesture and empty the tumbler in one gulp, but he settled for a sparing swallow instead. It helped some, but not much. "Perhaps you'd feel perfectly comfortable watching your best friend get it off with some fair blossom from the joy house, but I wouldn't. It would make me feel as if – well, like I'd have to prove myself to make this whole thing worthwhile, and I just don't enjoy…"

"… proving yourself?" Denny cocked his head, the picture of innocence. "Oh, _please_."

"Oh, all right. I'll admit that wasn't the most fitting way of phrasing it, but… Denny, I can hardly envisage a situation where I'd be more vulnerable, or prone to judgment." Not for the first time, Alan was struck with the feeling he was drowning in the convolutedness of his own defense. That wasn't unlike how he felt during most of his closings, but at least juries tended to fall for those, as long as they came with the right amount of drama. Denny wasn't just bored to tears by long closings, he could see straight through all the drama as well.

Alan jumped; at some point during his little moment of self-examination, Denny had drifted across the room and ended up next to him. He was pouring himself a drink from a different bottle, his glass clinking dangerously.

"Judgment?" Denny said. "Is that what this is about? That I'd be _judging _you?" He swirled the Scotch around, gazing into its depths like they might wield up some as-yet-undiscovered truth.

Alan bit down on a pang of sympathy; if only tumblers of Scotch could be wells of wisdom, how much simpler would life be?

"What makes you think I'd even _watch_?" Denny continued. "Do you really think I'd watch _you_ when there's a… what did you call it? A 'fair blossom' to catch my eye?" He lifted the glass with a jerk, the Scotch sloshing over the rim. "I thought you trusted me."

Alan forced not one, but two deep breaths before trusting himself to reply. He was starting to regret having that drink. He'd swear it was burning right through his stomach lining. "Denny, this isn't about trust…"

"_Yes, it is_!" Denny slammed the glass down on the cabinet; Alan kept his grip on his own glass only with an effort. "And I'll tell you something else! If we're talking vulnerable, don't you think I've drawn the short straw here? I've got Mad Cow! Chances are you'll get to see me a lot more vulnerable than the other way around! Maybe I won't realize because my brain has turned to mush; then again, maybe I will, and I'm fine with it – because I trust you. _That'_s trust, Alan! And you don't trust me in a small thing like _this_?"

Alan clamped his jaws shut. For a second, he actually wondered if he was about to lose Denny's perfectly good Scotch right there on Denny's ridiculously expensive handmade carpet. Why was it every time he thought he'd developed some immunity to the thought of watching Denny die an ugly, graceless death, Denny had to come up with a way to slam the message home again?

Shakily, Alan put down his glass and waited for the nausea to give way to anger. It always did.

"First, it's not a small thing," he said, biting off every syllable. "Second… Denny, that's – that's not fair."

Denny shrugged. "What isn't?"

"_What you said!" _Alan threw his head back, grappling for self-control. "For God's sake, Denny, you – you – you just compared _our_ having a threesome to _your_ Alz– your _Mad Cow_! If that's playing fair–"

"But I don't wanna play fair!" Denny shot back. "I wanna _win_! And I want you to be reasonable, and say that you'll do this for me!"

"Oh, now suddenly it _is _all for you?" Alan yelled. He didn't care if he was sounding like a six-year old having a temper tantrum; if Denny was allowed to, then so was he.

"Did I say–" Denny's eyes widened. "I said _with _me! Didn't I say '_with'_–"

"Oh, no, no, no," Alan wheezed. "I'm quite sure what you said was: 'for'! In fact I–"

The door flew open.

The sight of Shirley Schmidt thrusting her head inside – not to mention the ample bosom and well-formed pair of legs that followed – cut them both off mid-rant. Alan froze and stood gulping the air with what he realized too late had to be a farcically undignified expression. Denny just stared as if seeing a vision from heaven.

"What the hell–" Shirley began, then cut herself off as she took in the scene. Alan assembled the mental picture for himself: Denny red-faced and panting, shirtfront stained with Scotch; Alan ramrod-straight and white as a sheet, probably looking on the verge of hyperventilating. And Denny hadn't even broken out the paintball guns yet. Any fight between the two of them that had gotten this nasty without some type of assault weapons becoming involved, had to be in dead earnest.

Shirley must have reached the same conclusion, because she sighed and shut the door behind her. "Right." Her eyes flicked from Denny to Alan and back again. "You've got one minute to tell me what's going on here. Alan, you first."

Alan scowled at Denny, who still had his eyes fixed on Shirley. He took a deep breath, fully prepared for all his anger to come rushing out in a torrent of suppressed emotion that would put Denny in his most melodramatic mood to shame…

And then he had it. The strategy that would save his ass – or, more likely in this instance, his penis. He lifted his chin.

"It'll be Denny's birthday soon," he told Shirley. Denny seemed to have finally snapped out of his trance. "He told me he'd like a special birthday present. Something which you, in fact, might be able to help us with."

"I'm not sure I like where this is going," Shirley said, pulling a face – the kind that made Alan go weak in the knees, and, quite probably, was making Denny go the _opposite_ of weak someplace else. That thought only strengthened Alan's resolve.

"_'Flamingos share'_, Denny. Wasn't that how you phrased it?" He shot Denny a sideways look. "I have a proposal: how about we ask Shirley to join us for_…_ " He let the sentence trail off, leaving Denny plenty of time for the implication to sink in.

You could say one thing for Denny; he could be slow to catch up sometimes, but he amply made up for that in sheer vehemence. "Oh, no, we won't!" he barked, hands balling into fists at his side. His cheeks were blotched crimson with anger, but Alan could hardly miss the flash of panic in his eyes.

"Why not?" Alan said, ignoring Shirley's stinging glare; Shirley knew them well enough not to interrupt unless this turned violent. "I thought this was all about trust?" For a second, he had to swallow a pang of guilt; he could see Denny's cheeks sagging as he spoke. But, come on, what mercy had Denny shown _him_? Alan squared his shoulders and twisted the knife in the wound. "Honestly, Denny, this seems like a fair deal to me. All parties making a small sacrifice – after all, it's for the greater good, isn't it?"

In the split second while Denny's jaw dropped, Alan actually considered it. If it was Shirley they were talking about... Of course, there was no way Shirley would agree to this, but say, hypothetically, if this was his one shot at getting Shirley to…

No. He still couldn't do it. As much as he ached for a taste of her, this was too degraded even for him.

"What greater good?" Shirley cut in, finally seeing a window and taking it. "And what does this even have to do with me?" Of course she couldn't know what was going on, but knowing him and Denny, she could probably take a fairly good guess. Depending on how far Alan pushed this, this could either end well, or very, _very_ badly. He gulped. Well, it couldn't be helped. He had decided to bluff; now he'd just have to see this through.

"Shirley, Denny and I would like to ask you…"

"To have dinner together," Denny finished the sentence. He was looking straight at Alan, an openly pleading look on his face. Alan stared back.

"Okay…" Shirley said slowly. "That seems reasonable." She didn't believe a word they were saying, Alan realized, with a surge of what felt strangely like pride. "On one condition: if I may ask what you two were fighting about."

"You may not," Alan said smoothly. He caught Denny's eye, surprised to find the tightness in his gut had melted, making room for warmth. Or maybe not that surprised; this was Denny, after all. "I think Denny has just learned something about the nature of trust. And so have I."

Denny's eyes darkened briefly. Then he cracked a smile. "We're good, then, you and I? You're not mad at me?" Alan knew him too well not to hear the unease in his voice.

Alan smiled back. "We're good."

Denny grinned and, in one movement, wheeled back to Shirley. "Oh, one other thing! Seeing as it's my birthday, and you just agreed to Alan and me taking you to dinner… Is there any chance you could wear–"

"I am not wearing the cheerleader outfit!" Shirley snapped. But her eyes softened at Denny's hurt expression. "I will put on a good effort to look my best, though. Because it's your birthday, and because… well. Just – no taking advantage. And no funny business, from either of you. You understand?"

"Perfectly," Alan assured her.

"A good effort," Denny said eagerly. "You mean cleavage?"

Shirley groaned. "Oh, Lord."

"The viewers would love it!" Denny said.

Alan could only smile. "As would I."

He checked his watch and closed his eyes, waiting for the end titles to roll.


End file.
